Scholar's Award: Permeable Spaces and the Global Flow of Biomedical Knowledge

过去对实验室、测试场、博物馆和其他科学传播和生产场所的研究发现，物理场所往往限制了可以生产和传播的知识类型。这项研究挑战了这一框架，提供了一个新的理论框架和方法，将物理空间视为知识流通和转化的渗透性和重要场所。它的第二个主要贡献是将联邦法规的研究与生物医学实践的经验定性证据相结合。 该研究基于全球医院人种志，研究了塑造生物医学知识全球分布和流通的因素。它调查了医院的物理布局和组织，生物医学的文化理解以及规则和法规如何交叉，以塑造不同行为者如何理解，使用和传播知识。研究方法主要有参与观察法、访谈法、法规内容分析法等。更广泛的影响包括向研究发生地缅因州大波特兰地区为移民提供服务的机构提供新知识;为生物医学工作人员提供报告和演示;以及科学出版物。

Past studies of laboratories, test fields, museums and other sites of scientific dissemination and production have found that physical places often limit the kinds of knowledge that can be produced and circulated. This study challenges that framework, offering a new theoretical framework and methodology that treats physical spaces as permeable and important sites of knowledge circulation and transformation. Its second major contribution is to integrate studies of federal regulations with empirical qualitative evidence of biomedical practices. The study is based on a global hospital ethnography that examines the factors that shape the global distribution and circulation of biomedical knowledge. It investigates how the physical layout and organization of a hospital, cultural understandings of biomedicine, and rules and regulations intersect to shape how knowledge is understood, used and circulated by different actors. The main research methods are participant observation, interviews, and content analysis of regulations and laws. Broader impacts include new knowledge delivered to agencies that provide services for immigrants in the greater Portland, Maine area where the study takes place; reports and presentations for biomedical staff; and scientific publications.